There is one element of the Soho Masses ‘liturgy’ that is very dear to the hearts of the members of the Soho Masses Pastoral Council, and that is their composition of the bidding prayers. This is the one area of the Mass that they had total control of, and through which they could express their Queer ideology. No doubt they will be very concerned to ensure that they will be able to compose the bidding prayers for some of the Masses at Farm Street. It is to be expected that they will bring this up at the meeting with Archbishop Nichols at Farm Street on the 6th January.

Here is an example of the bidding prayers composed by the Soho Masses Pastoral Council for the Gay Pride Mass of 2011:

Priest: Let us pray for our various communities, and wider society, for the Church, and our own particular needs, as we celebrate being proudly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and proudly Catholic.

Protect the Pope comment: From the perspective of the Catholic Faith being homosexual can never be a matter of celebration or pride because ‘it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder (CDF, Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics 1975). No inclination towards sin can be a cause of celebration. But like all inclinations towards moral disorders it can be controlled through virtue and the sacraments. All of us suffer from moral disorders of one sort or another, that have to be resisted.

2nd male (dressed as a female):For various communities which we represent: of ethnicity and language, of gender and diverse sexual orientations. We find means to celebrate this diversity, and strive for greater social justice, and (?) for all people. God in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Protect the Pope comment: This prayer wrongly presents ‘diverse sexual orientations’ as being equal and good. The Catholic Faith is clear that God created male and female with an integral sexual complementarity that is expressed through heterosexuality. Not only does the text of the prayer reject this, but the stipulation that a male reader must be dressed as a female liturgically rejects the Faith of the Church.

1st male:That the community of the Church, its pastors and people, embrace the challenge with which God risks engaging with us. That a joyful and life-giving vision of sexuality be proclaimed, that embraces the fullness of human diversity, and excludes no-one. God in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Protect the Pope comment: This prayer is written in code words of dissent. It is calling for homosexuality, bisexuality and transvestism to be proclaimed by the Church as ‘joyful and life-giving’. It is replacing the Church’s understanding of these conditions as inclinations to ‘moral disorders’ with the Soho Masses Pastoral Council’s understanding of them as ‘the fullness of human diversity’.

2nd male (dressed as a female): For lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered organisations, here and throughout the world, and especially those which gather and support people of faith, that they may reflect the rainbow covenant of justice and integrity which God establishes amongst us. Remember, especially here in the UK, the Soho Masses Pastoral Council, the Roman Catholic Caucus , the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, Quest, Called to be One network for Catholic parents.

Protect the Pope comment: All of these groups openly and publicly dissent from the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexual morality and the teaching on authority. Significantly, there is no mention EnCourage, the one group for homosexuals that does uphold the teaching of the Church. EnCourage offers a spiritual support system for men and women with homosexual orientation who desire to live chaste lives. http://www.encouragetrust.org.uk.

Here are the websites of the dissenting groups: www.sohomasses.com; www.rccaucuslgcm.co.uk; www.lgcm.org.uk; www.questgaycatholic.org.uk

Priest:Gracious God, make us lovers and sharers of your good news, as we proudly celebrate all that you have made us to be, in your created design. May our action and prayer reflect the integrity to which you call us as disciples of Jesus, our brother and risen Christ, living and reigning in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

Protect the Pope comment: This prayer implies that homosexual desires, bisexual desires, and transgendered desires are God’s created design, and not part of the moral disorder in creation caused by sin. Being men and women created in the image of God, and restored to the likeness of God in Christ through baptism and the rejection of sin, they are part of God’s created design. But to be sexually active homosexuals, bisexuals and transgendered can never be truthfully presented as God’s intention for creating human sexuality.

Protect the Pope Comment: The CDF’s Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics states that one of the objectives of pastoral care of homosexuals is to challenge an ’ overly benign interpretation… given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it “neutral or even good’.

It is obvious from these bidding prayers that the Soho Masses Pastoral Council far from challenging an overly benign interpretation of the homosexual condition is presenting this, and a range of other moral disorders, as not only good but something to be celebrated and proud.

The Soho Masses Pastoral Council is openly defying the teaching of the Catholic Church by presenting these inclinations to moral disorders as a morally acceptable option.

There would be no problem with the Soho Masses if they upheld Catholic teaching, like EnCourage, and encouraged participants to control through virtues and the sacraments their inclination to moral disorder. This is something that we all have to do. However, it appears that the Soho Masses celebrate and affirm inclinations to moral disorder.

I think homosexuals who genuinely wanted to be chaste and join encourage would not have attended the Soho mass but would have instead gone to a normal parish like every other Catholic who struggles with sin rather than trying to justify it.

When I read Archbishop Nichols’ statement yesterday I had thought that he was bringing to an end the scandal and sacrilege of ‘gay’ Masses. Re-reading it now it seems that what is being ended is the ‘regular’ (fortnightly) Mass, not the possibility of occasional (aptly named ‘irregular’) Masses. Perhaps the Archbishop thought that this would take some heat out of the controversy, but it does not infact end the scandal and sacrilege.

These people are chancing their arm alright.And unless this group is closed down …it will get worse.

Someone , somewhere needs to have the moral courage to face these people down.

If you are in an episcopal office in the Catholic church then you must act-the time for sitting on your hands and agonising is over.A well-intentioned but naive attempt at pastoral care 6 or 7 years ago has now got seriously out of hand.
Someone needs to have safe custody of the locks and keys to Farm St Church.
Part of the make-up of homosexual behaviour seems to be a rather juvenile attraction to narcissistic and attention -seeking activities.They are the centre of their own universe and the ADW has made a rod for its own back.These people have been given an inch and have taken an Irish mile.
I bet even now the script is being written for the BBC Sunday programme…be prepared for a solidarity statement from HH Pope Tatchell and a curia bulletin from the Holy Office of Stonewall.
These people will get nasty.
If it goes too far it may well be taken out of ++Vin’s hands.

I have just checked that the post of Auxiliary bishop for Central and East London in the ADW is currently vacant.
This will make for interesting times.Apparently the ADW is applying for another Area bishop.
One who is good at juggling hot potatoes, presumably?

I think we might be seeing the beginning of the end of the attempt to make the Catholic Church in England part of the ‘Establishment’. This began under Basil Hume (a member of the Athenaeum who was referred to by the Queen as ‘my cardinal’), and continued under CMOC (it was widely rumoured that the latter might be given a peerage on his retirement). Given the state of the Established Church this was superficially attractive, but it is always dangerous to cut cards with the Devil, and the whole ‘gay marriage’ issue has highlighted the need for the Church to be counter-cultural.

Talk of red hats is a red herring – it is inconceivable that England should not have a cardinal, or that the red hat would go elsewhere than Westminster. If it is true that Rome had to intervene, then all the bishops, and not just ++Vincent, should reflect on whether they are doing their jobs properly. In 1914 Lord Kitchener, then Secretary of State for War, arrived in France in Field Marshal’s uniform to convey the government’s instructions to the C-in-C of the BEF, FM Sir John French. French felt the humiliation keenly.

Interesting comparison…………..French was sacked not that long afterwards.

Your point about red hats at Westminster is absolutely correct…since 1850 the incumbent has always eventually worn the gallero.

But it does not necessarily have to be the one holding the Archepiscopal cathedra at the moment, does it?

Vatican chess is an interesting game.

A new See is possibly being erected…the Archdiocese of Labrador and Greenland………plenty of space to evangelise the Inuit.You know , get away from the noise and bussle of central London.
I know just the person ………..

Oh come on, bidding prayers are neither here nor there. When the Birmingham Orartory decided over a year ago to make its principal Mass EF, no-one missed the so-called prayers of the faithful which were were imposed in 1964.

Ironically, the occasion for French’s dismissal (his alleged mishandling of the reserves at the Battle of Loos) was almost certainly unfair. This battle was ordered by the politicians against the better judgement of the commanders on the spot because our French allies demanded it. Most historians agree that Sir John wasn’t up to the task, and his sacking of General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien out of personal resentment deprived the BEF of one of its outstanding commanders. Fortunately we had a lot of able men (Haig, Byng, Plumer, Monash, to name but four) who were to go on to lead the British and Commonwealth armies to the greatest run of victories in their entire history, which for some reason we don’t even remember, still less celebrate.

Agree wholeheartedly-Monash as you will know was an outsider of outsiders-a colonial and a Jew.
We have allowed our historical perspective to be clouded by the “Lions lead by donkeys” myth.And the anti-war backlash in the late 20s was very largely officer-led Bloomsburyistas-the literary types etc.Most people in the trenches-though war-weary by 1918 still believed in the rightness of resisting the Kaiser.
I still find great solace in saying the occasional prayer at Westminster cathedral in the chapel for the great Irish regiments of the Line and the RIC-the men of the 10th and 16th Irish Divisions.Only now is Eire starting to recall that Roger Casement nearly got lynched at Rhuleben POW Camp when he harangued hundreds of Irish prisoners captured on the Western Front.
Memory is fickle, isn’t it?
We had the canonisation of the 40 Martyrs in 1970 -just as their memory was being downgraded for the sake of ecumenism.
Time to reverse this.